by S J Hartland
“What do you want, Rozenn of Cahir? Why are you here?”
A shrug. “I brought you a gift.”
“You brought me a curse. That book is evil.”
Rozenn released a breath. “I am right. You do know about the boy.”
Vraymorg flung his glance from her. By candlelight, the few objects in his drab room looked jarringly unfamiliar. A cloak flung carelessly over his chair, his discarded weapons belt and long-bladed sword, a knife with a jewel-clustered hilt.
Few possessions and he valued none of them.
“I know.”
“And what will you do?”
“Nothing.”
She swung on him with words. “Are you so arrogant? Give me Kaell and I’ll do what you’re afraid to.”
“You’d spill his blood? A child’s?”
“And bring Khir’s curse upon my head? Even I, a Cahirean, respect the old gods of Telor. I won’t spill a drop. Though if the omens prove true, I’ll bloodlessly execute Kaell when he is older. I am not cruel. It’ll be quick.”
“How old is old enough to die?” Vraymorg forced his fist through air to beat back her meaning. “Do your vicious gods set an age?”
“The priests and priestesses did. Yes.”
They glowered across a chasm of mistrust. The room filled with a yowling wind, a rattle of shutters, the fire’s crackle. Yet something else ripened, too strange; ripped from his longing, his emptiness.
Her glare softened to a sad smile. “How alone you must feel here, Val Arques. An Isles bladesman in these desolate mountains.”
He made no reply. Not just her beauty, but a yearning to feel, to escape his loneliness just for one night quickened his heart to chaos.
She took a step closer, even closer, touching fingertips to his lips. “Such a sensuous mouth for a killer, my lord.”
Vraymorg did not draw away. The atmosphere needled with that intimacy of warriors locked in a fight to the death, akin to passion. Enlivening but dangerous.
Rozenn’s cloak slid from her shoulders to puddle on stone. Candlelight gleamed on bare skin, shadowed soft, sweet curves.
“Is that what you want of me, Rozenn of Cahir?” he whispered, his hand moving to the nape of her neck. Her hair was as soft as a child’s.
Beneath his palm she trembled as she fell against him. He closed his arms about her. Desire blazed hot and fast in his groin, a carnal ribbon of fire through every muscle.
With ragged breaths, Rozenn stripped off his garments.
He pressed his lips to hers with a savagery born of loneliness, his caresses roaming hungrily from tangled hair to breast to hip.
When they tumbled onto the bed, wind fanged his naked back. Vraymorg thought he heard a warning in its moan. Though it might only be Rozenn’s cry as she arched beneath him.
A grinding woke him. The creaking portcullis. The room was cold; the blankets tangled about his ankles, the indented bed empty but still warm from where Rozenn slept.
Vraymorg sat up fast. He rose and padded to the windows. Moonlight gleamed on faces beneath hoods, on sword hilts as riders threaded through the gatehouse.
The Cahireans. Leaving before dawn.
Vraymorg turned for his cloak. His breath cut.
A thin, silver blade, its hilt ivory, protruded from his pillow. A forbidden Seithin temple knife that pinned parchment to spilled feathers.
Heart clamouring in his chest, he ripped the knife out, snatched up the paper and took it into the moonlight. He read:
Generous, indeed, Val Arques. Tonight you gave me the throne of Telor. You, my lord, have brought on the very storm you fear.
Kaell
Year 12 in the Reign of Cathmor
The man on the ground squirmed beneath Kaell’s blade. Sunlight drummed upon his dropped helm. “Bastard,” he said. “Bastard.”
Kaell grinned. Probably. “You yield to this bastard, then?”
His opponent scraped words through gnashed teeth. “Curse you. Yes. I yield.”
Kaell’s grin widened. That made six. All heralded warriors vanquished at the point of his sword; its clank, its whir a sweet, sweet melody for this dance of death upon a field streaked with blood and purple wildflowers.
But for the needle-thin keep of Knight’s Spike circled by forest-crusted hills, it might be any tournament ground, anywhere in Telor. The silk and canvas of pavilions and banners snapped in the breeze. The cacophonic roil of clashing metal and squeaking leather cut air hazy with summer’s honeyed warmth and smoke from a distant forest fire.
A milling crowd, vividly clad in a rainbow of dyed linens and straw hats, shouted and jeered as bladesmen hewed, hacked, sweated, bled for their amusement.
Kaell whipped his sword from his opponent’s throat. As he stepped back, spectators cheered. A muted roar.
They desired a tangle of steel and flesh. Black fountains of blood. Sheared limbs. Screams. They wanted the victor to rip off his helm, brazenly kiss a young woman in the crowd and thrust his sword skyward with all the theatrics of a bawdy farce.
Not a quick, controlled victory from an unnamed warrior, iron hiding his face and hair.
Too bad. He didn’t fight to please them.
Nor did he fight to please the grim-faced Downs lord, Nate Caelmarsh, watching in comfort from his cushioned seat upon a platform.
Kaell fought to please one man. A man who wasn’t here to see his victories. Though again and again his gaze sifted the jostling mob, half dreading, half hoping that man might come.
“A bet,” cried one of Caelmarsh’s companions. The speaker wore a plain-dyed but embroidered doublet, stained with wine. He clasped his goblet with a nobleman’s soft hands.
“Two pieces of silver says the next challenger puts this too-tidy swordsman in the dirt.”
“Done,” said a young woman with tumbling brown curls and curved, red lips. She tossed Kaell a bold smile. “Win for me, stranger.”
He bowed, his glance shifting uneasily to Caelmarsh, master of these soft, green lands sweeping north to the Mountains, south to the Isles, fat with wheat and citrus orchards and scented of rich, resinous earth.
But the Downs lord only gulped wine, unaware the young man he had vowed to kill stood a mere few lengths from him.
Kaell choked a careless laugh. He’d die young. Bloody. But whatever his fate, it wasn’t to rot in some dank prison because time failed to soften an ageing lord’s grudge.
“Stop that man.”
A warrior with age-blackened iron covering his face and hair shouldered past a protesting marshal onto the field. A herald scampered after him, plucking at the newcomer’s scarlet tunic. “Stop. You’re not on the lists.”
The warrior spun. Threw a fist. The herald hit the ground hard.
Outrage erupted. Agitated marshals shouted for soldiers. Sensing the unexpected, spectators rushed to the fence. A low murmur rippled, built to shouts.
Ignoring the tumult, the stranger strode right at Kaell as if intent on fighting only him.
Kaell gripped his hilt. His scalp prickled with that thrill of challenge, of danger that banished all else. Smothered the lump of fear in his gut.
Not fear of death. Fear at what he could do. At how easily he could lose control and hurt this man. Fear he wanted to.
Still the stranger came at him. He ignored the groaning herald, the stirred up-crowd. With no warning, no word, his sword flashed as he thrust at Kaell’s thigh.
Out of position, Kaell shuddered back. His leaping blade barely scraped the blow aside.
The stranger laughed. As though gripped by battle trance, he blinked sleepily through his helm’s slits.
Kaell bit down on a surge of anger. He dipped a shoulder and shoved.
The man lazily yawed a step. “Is that all you’ve got?” His wilted blade invited an attack.
Willingly Kaell jabbed a probe. Swordplay was a conversation. A lunge or beat was a question, a parry an answer. Even a false reply uncovered patterns in an opponent’s slashes.
The warrior responded with a limp, disinterested stroke.
Knowing this game, Kaell swung hard, forcing the man to dodge.
The stranger unleashed a maelstrom of shrieking hacks and cuts. Kaell leapt back. Then he counterattacked with battering, flurried steel. Slash, stab, hew.
Swords collided, scraped, leapt, cut, the combatants at once swept up in a torrent of slashing swordplay. Boots churned dirt and flattened blood-splattered blossoms. Breath hissed from tightening chests.
Thrust, retreat, thrust again. Steel whistled through steaming air, singing blades seeking flesh but finding only metal in a lethal tempest that surely pleased the most demanding gods.
The crowd roared at every blow, at every dizzying step. Cheering as swords pealed in a whirlpool of blue-sparked steel.
Kaell hacked, hammered at shoulders, smashed low, determined to wound not kill. For all his speed and skill, a metallic assault dogged him, a deceptive hunt of whirring death.
Soon sweat drenched his armpits and matted hair beneath his helm. Thought condensed to staccato notes. Wear him down. Keep control. Do not kill. A bonded warrior must kill only ghouls, not men.
Nor would he yield. He was too proud. So his sword streaked like lightning, seeking openings to wound.
The stranger answered every stroke, then rained blows with a cat-like balance and an unnatural calm. Unable to pierce Kaell’s defence, he changed tactics to retreat with a lowered blade. Kaell shadowed his steps but refused to rush an attack.
As if recognising the bait dangled uselessly, his opponent smote deep and fast.
Kaell’s training screamed parry, but he recklessly leapt into the thunderous strike, hilt grinding from tip to pommel. Swords caught, the two pressed blade-to-blade, body-to-body, their eyes locked in a private, perverse bonding.
The stranger’s breath steamed his cheek. The helm’s slits rimmed eyes like dark crystal.
“They said you were fearless—Kaell.”
Kaell jolted with alarm. His face hidden, no one here knew his name. Who was this man?
Sunlight sparked on metal. The stranger fisted a knife in his other hand. He stabbed. Kaell jerked back. But the knife followed. It ripped through cloth and skin, its bite sharp. Blood pooled below his hip.
No time to recognise pain. The man already cleaved at his legs. Kaell smashed his sword down. The shudder of blades nearly wrenched his from his hand.
Unbalanced, he flung an arm at his opponent’s chest. The stranger stumbled. Enraged, he bellowed and swung high.
Kaell spun to one knee. Steel swished a hair’s breadth from his scalp. He sprang up with a yell and punched the man in the jaw.
The warrior crumpled. His dislodged helm clunked to the ground.
Ponderously he rose, kicked the helm away and stood tall and unbowed, with a finely chiselled face, arrogantly stretched neck—
And an inhuman shade of blond hair. Freed from the helm it tumbled about broad shoulders, darkly golden, long and glinting.
Shock anchored Kaell. He could only stare at that hair, a creep at the back of his neck.
All sound drained away. Marshals circled. One pointed a wavering finger at the blond warrior. In a voice thick with horror, he cried, “Ghoul. He’s a ghoul.”
Swords scraped from scabbards. Guards ran onto the field. The crowd’s whispers rose to gasps, then shrieks of terror. Most shrank back. The braver, or drunker, pressed forward.
The ghoul’s gaze held on Kaell. “Khir’s warrior. Well, well. You’re a long way from home, little flower.”
Kaell snapped from his trance. Waving the guards back, he curled gloved fingers about his hilt.
“So are you. This is the Downs. Doesn’t your kind prefer to cower in the Mountains?”
“My kind.” The ghoul only laughed. “What do you know of my kind, orphan brat?”
A clumsy taunt. Kaell grinned chillingly. No need now to check his strokes, to limit his sword arm. Before him stood a monster, and his god and his lord bid him slay monsters.
“Here to kill me, ghoul?”
“Sadly, my master forbids it. Though he says nothing about making you bleed while I deliver his message.”
“I have a message for you, too.”
Roaring, Kaell leapt in. His sword sliced, stormed, thrashed. A song burst up. No longer restrained, his body, his will, gladly surrendered to training and instinct. To darkness.
The ghoul edged back, then back again, grunting in surprise as he struggled to keep out streaming thrusts.
Kaell sprang again, his blade humming as it devoured distance.
A cold joy bolted within. Hard to kill a ghoul warrior, but his god had gifted him with unnatural strength and speed. This would end as it always did when he fought ghouls. In blood—but not his.
The ghoul blocked and swept steel. Again their swords locked. The two strained against each other, rasped breath expelled in air sharp with the odour of sweat, damp hair and skin.
“This is amusing,” the ghoul said. “Why I’ve even worked up a sweat. But you cannot beat me. I am Lastenarron, a Lord of the Night.”
“Lord of the Night or not,” Kaell said. “You’ll still die the same.”
“You’re sweet but you know nothing, child. Soon you’ll journey to the Waste Mountains. My master says if you come to him, he promises the answers you seek. The truth about who you are.”
“What?” Kaell shivered. “Who is this master?”
As slippery as a fish, Lastenarron freed his blade, ducked beneath Kaell’s whirring sword and ran. The young warrior spun to follow.
A marshal shouted, “After the ghoul. Don’t let him get away.”
Guards wearing Downs badges took up the chase. Lastenarron reached the fence and vaulted into the crowd, light striking his drawn sword, discordant shouts and screams scattered in his wake.
Kaell forced a path after him. Lost his target. Hearing shrieks, he ran towards them.
The crowd splintered around him, desperately charging in the other direction. A dazed woman clutched a bawling girl to her breast as he ran by. A man pointed, “That way.”
The ghoul dashed past billowing pavilions, a guard on his heels. Panicked figures dispersed like a flock of squawking birds.
The guard shouted a challenge. Lastenarron pivoted. Thrust. His pursuer parried.
Their violent clash of blades spun the guard’s sword high. Unarmed, he tried to back up, but the ghoul grabbed him.
Kaell broke into a sprint, shouting, “No!”
“There you are, Kaell.” Lastenarron squeezed an arm about the guard’s throat. “I want you to know you can’t save him. You can’t save anyone. The true god of this land will soon be free. He’s coming.”
The guard writhed, his face contorted in terror. Lastenarron did not look at him. He held his eyes on Kaell as he sank his teeth into soft flesh. Blood spouted from the man’s neck. A woman wailed, the sound quickly drowned by horrified cries.
Lastenarron flung his prey down, lunged at a nearby man and with one wrench tore his head from his neck.
As blood and bone from the man’s crushed vertebrae sprayed, the ghoul roared in glee and dropped the convulsing torso. He shouldered into a thinning mob, bunting bodies aside with his fists.
Seething with outrage, Kaell tore after him, ready to leap and cleave with steel.
A staff shot out. Kaell hit it, coiled, dropped and lay breathless, his sword at his side. A dark-haired man reached down a hand with an apologetic grimace. “Sorry. I didn’t see you.”
Wind nibbled at his sky-blue linen shirt, red bandana and green cowl. A low-slung belt about leather pants sheathed a jewelled knife. Silver coiled his arms and ears.
Kaell growled. Ignoring the offered hand, he jumped up, snatched his sword and whirled this way and that. No sign of the ghoul.
He rushed back to find others gathered around the decapitated body. Nearby, a grey-haired, beak-nosed man bent over the fallen guard. “Is he—?”
The man looked up from
his knees and shook his head.
Kaell heaved an angry, helpless sigh. It fell to him to stop Lastenarron. To save these men. Curse the silvered peacock who got in his way.
An uncomfortable thought struck him. The peacock spoke with a Mountains lilt and dressed like the gaudily colourful Varee; slavers and thieves from the wastelands beyond the great gorge. Did he deliberately interfere? Why?
A hand brushed his sleeve. Kaell turned.
“The ghoul got away?” A marshal led a knot of ill-assorted warriors hastily called from their pavilions.
“Yes.”
“Or maybe you let him escape. Given how well you fight, maybe you’re a ghoul too. That one also hid his face. Is that why you’ve hidden yours? Take off that helm. Let us see who—or what—is beneath.”
“No one.” Kaell took a step back.
“Stop that man.” A new voice rang out.
Kaell wheeled. Trailed by armed retainers, the Lord of the Downs stomped towards him.
He looked older, his lank hair receded, shoulders stooped towards his mound of a belly, at odds with his gaunt limbs.
The vicious, ruby-lipped mouth was the same though. Still made for sly insults and quick judgements. Just as it had been all those years ago when this man travelled to Vraymorg on the king’s orders to judge him.
Nate Caelmarsh jabbed a gnarled finger at Kaell. “Show your face. Or we’ll gut you.”
He would not remove the helm. He would not reveal his dark-blond hair that drew glances so hostile they fell like a slap.
I’m not Seithin, Kaell wanted to shout when strangers whispered behind their hands and traced signs against evil at the sight of him. How can I be? The Seithin are dead. Hunted down.
The crowd thickened. Necks craned, men and women jostled for the best view, attracted by the marshal’s threats, their lord’s booming voice and the scent of bloody entertainment.
A drunken voice slurred, “Kill the ghoul.” Others pressed forward, fists clenched, shouting, “ghoul, ghoul, ghoul.”
Caelmarsh poked a finger again. “His face. I must see his face.”
Soldiers blocked Kaell. He tried to edge around. “Here, what is this?” They shadowed him.